


framing

by sonshineandshowers



Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a soft ending, Depictions of Violence in Hallucination, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Foreplay Mishaps, Hallucinations, Halted Foreplay, Horror, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Partner Dynamics, Sexual Content, no actual violence between people
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-20
Updated: 2020-06-20
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:55:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24816454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sonshineandshowers/pseuds/sonshineandshowers
Summary: After waiting all day for Gil to come home, Malcolm’s thrilled to have Gil’s lips buried in his neck, his face pressed up against the wall as fingers poke into his hips. But not everything goes as intended... What happens is all about the framing.
Relationships: Gil Arroyo/Malcolm Bright
Comments: 6
Kudos: 31





	framing

Gil’s arms wrap around Malcolm’s waist like tendrils rooting, unwilling to let go in the face of starvation. After waiting all day for Gil to come home, Malcolm’s thrilled to have Gil’s lips buried in his neck, his face pressed up against the wall as fingers poke into his hips.

Claiming him, Gil takes every bit for himself as if he’ll never get another grip, another chance to hold Malcolm tight. His nails are rough, digging into Malcolm’s skin under his t-shirt, latching on with nowhere to escape. There’s a grit to his movements that edges Malcolm’s pulse to race faster to catch up to the speed of Gil’s actions.

Pressed flush with the wall, Malcolm’s hardening cock juts against it, rubbing in time with Gil’s exploration. He doesn’t know exactly which one of his texts got Gil going on the drive home, but he hopes he can remember to ask later so he can repeat it in the future. Gil’s teeth dig into the muscular ridge where his neck meets his shoulder, ripping a surge of want through his frame and whacking his forehead into the wall.

Being sucked into the wall feels like layers of bubblewrap Gil’s threatened to swaddle him with, muffling his entire existence. It’s a buffer at first, until studs skewer his frame at an even 16 inches, marionetting his arms and feet, goring beside his neck through his trunk like a shish kebab, and bolting a parallel strike through the outside of his shoulder. His fingers and toes emerge from the other side in a shriveling cry for help, yet he’s unable to move.

He’s suspended in the wall, can’t feel Gil behind him promising an evening fuck, can’t even register his calming touch. Pierced with two-by-fours, he’s destined to be part of the home’s construction for eternity, speaking to any guests that may pass.

“Have you seen the Whitly boy?” they’ll ask. And comment, “Just as jailed as his father. Pity, really. He could’ve been somebody.”

He _is_. If they just look closer, see him for what he is instead of the wall he’s become. Take a moment to peer between the pinstriped wallpaper to see the world beyond the red lines. The man whose blue eyes dimmed, only the whites remaining, invisible amongst the red.

He’s dead, left to be consumed by the wandering rats who need supplemental nourishment. Until they decide he’s not tasty enough, his abysmal nutrition making him subpar to stray Cheerios, wallpaper paste, or even fiberglass. He’s an inscribed cornerstone covered over by years of unfortunate design trends.

He just… ends.

That can’t be him.

“Let me out!” he screams, pushing at the wood. If he flails enough it just might bust and let him out for good.

“Help!” he cries, a shriek that punches through the drywall. Grunts and kicks free all his limbs and give him strength to smash the rest.

He’s out! He’s out! Crashes to the wood floor. Whitly’s blood is left behind, dripping through the paper, making the pattern solid. Bright’s all limbs trying to clear himself of debris.

“Bright!”

“Help!”

“ _Bright!_ ” a voice commands again, and he looks for where it’s emerging from. Ten feet away, crouched and speaking firmly, but quietly, is Gil.

Gil.

The wall?

“Bright, you’re safe,” Gil tells him, his voice forever steady. He could lay in its blanket of calm until he’s ready to emerge for the day.

“Help,” he says at a more typical volume, unsure what’s going on. He can’t find remnants of the wall or wounds from his entrapment. Hands keep sliding along the floor as if his whole body will escape down whatever chute the rest has traveled.

“Bright.”

“Help me,” he cries into his hands, tears falling between his fingers. He doesn’t see blood, but everything hurts, nothing fits back together properly after being ripped apart. “Help me.”

“Kid, I’m right here. Gil’s right here.”

Whole body curled up tight, he stretches his arm out away from his face as if he might connect to the voice that claims it can help him. He doesn’t know if it’s real or not. Doesn’t know if he’s conjured Gil as a way to cope with his demise, doesn’t know if a touch will dissolve into thin air.

Another hand folds into his. It’s large, calloused, able to shelter his whole hand and then some in one grip. “You’re okay, Malcolm.”

“I need help.” He’s not safe, he’s not —

“You’re in the kitchen. You can feel my hand, feel it squeeze, feel the floor underneath you. Hear my voice — “

“Are you really Gil?” Phantom Gil’s not real, not real —

“Kid, I’m right here.” He hears a waver in Gil’s voice, a giveaway that Gil is sad. Why is imaginary Gil sad? It doesn’t make sense. Why would his brain create a figment that couldn’t help him? Girls and boxes and knives and katanas and —

“I’m hurt.” He squeezes the hand, and it only squeezes him back harder. Dares to open his eyes, take his other hand away from in front of them, to a slight trail of Gil’s tears looking back at him.

As he looks over Gil’s body, he finds his length stretched out toward the door, perpendicular to him, only their hands connected. “What happened?” he asks.

“I’m not sure,” Gil replies, rubbing his hand with the back of his thumb. “Flashback? Hallucination?”

“I was stuck in the wall. Fought to get out.” Attempting to connect the rest while at the same time contemplating his lack of sleep, what he ate, or what the fuck is up with his meds, he’s only able to offer, “Hallucination.”

“It wasn’t real. As soon as you panicked, I let you go.” A thick, unreleased sob weights Gil’s remaining words. “I _promise_ I let you go.”

“I’m on the floor?” He feels a mild chill and his joints bothering him where they poke into the hardwood.

“Yeah.”

“I’m holding Gil’s hand.” He takes a deep breath that shudders in his chest. “I smell like BO.” Huffing, he comments at himself, “Need a shower. I taste copper, stale something. I hear my breathing, and Gil’s breathing, and… Sunshine rustling in the corner. I — “ Hiccuping, he rubs his free hand over his eyes. “I’m scared.”

“Can I come any closer?” Gil’s voice is as patient as if Malcolm’s unsteady hand had accidentally dropped his prized rabbit’s foot keychain, but it still rubs him like trying to cage Sunshine when she’s cranky. He was already trapped in a wall — his stomach rolls at the thought of being confined again.

“Please don’t.” He squeezes Gil’s hand, needing him, but unable to process any more stimulus. “I’m sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry about. Can I get you something? Your blanket, some water, Sunshine?”

Gil can’t go, he can’t — “Don’t leave me.” Malcolm ends up sounding more desperate than he intends, but he supposes he may be able to forgive himself for the reaction after the evening’s events.

“I won’t. I’m right here.” Gil squeezes his hand again.

“I don’t understand,” he admits, his temple and cheek pressed into the cold floor. “You came home, and then I got stuck, and now I’m on the floor.”

“You texted me the whole way home.” Gil rests his chin on his hand. “You wouldn’t believe that gadget trying to say some of the things you said.”

“We were gonna have sex.” He remembers Gil’s hands around his hips, the lust that had burst through his body on a race to mirror Gil.

“Yeah.”

The weight of another sexual encounter gone wrong impedes his vision. Other mishaps with Gil had been manageable conversations, but before that, there’d been a chef’s knife stuck in his floor and a terrified woman out the door. “I freaked out during — “

“Please don’t worry about it.” Gil’s fingers reach toward his wrist and brush his pulse point.

“W-what did I do? Did I hit you?” He can’t hit Gil, he can’t — there’s already been too many nightmares where that was a problem, he can’t —

“No. Just the wall.” Gil’s words calm that moment’s racing thoughts back to an even keel.

He turns over onto his back and looks up, the wall between the counter and the bedroom looking back at him. He doesn’t see any damage, no evidence of being stuck inside.

“Good thing that one has the plate in it, huh?”

“Something like that.” He shakes his head on the floor. “Gil, I’m sorry.”

“Please — you don’t need to apologize.” Gil always lets him get away with too much. Between his night terrors, nightmares, flashbacks, hallucinations, triggers, mood swings — the list goes on and on — he’s too much for it to be fair for Gil to deal with.

This isn’t okay. This is — “I might spend the night down here.”

“Not on my account,” Gil quickly cuts off his thought process.

“I can’t move right now.” Even thinking about shifting brings his anxiousness to the surface to swallow him whole again.

“Then we stay here.”

“You’re not going to be able to move in the morning,” he argues, trying to get Gil to see logic.

“So we’ll stay here.” Apparently Gil’s making up his own.

“Gil — you don’t need to do this,” he turns to Gil again, curling into himself. If they can just stare eye to eye, he knows he can convince him. But it’s too much — he needs to rest his eyes a second.

“I do,” Gil persists.

“You’re — “ Everything? The person who matters the most? Who…

Gil’s thumb runs back and forth over his hand, soothing him when he can’t come up with anything else to say. “You’re it, kid.”

He has no idea what _it_ means, but he wants to keep it as they lay on the wood floor like it’s carpet, Gil content to wait hours of his joints stiffening until Malcolm’s settled enough to get up. Pulling Gil’s hand a little closer, he hides his fingertips in Gil’s sweater cuff and counts the thrum of his pulse, wondering if they’re relaxing at the same pace in matching heartbeats.

* * *

_fin_


End file.
